How to Start a Blog for Free (& Make Money)

It's safe to say blogs are my specialty. I've managed some of the biggest blogs on the Internet and even started my own site while biking across the country.

I know what it's like to turn a few blog posts into a content engine that builds brand awareness and generates revenue for your business.

Here's the thing: There's no special sauce or secret ingredient. If you want to build a profitable blog, you have to follow a series of steps that will set your business up for success.

In this post, I'll teach you how to start a blog for free and make money online. I'll walk you through website development, content creation, and sharing blog posts online so it's easy to find you on social media and search engines. We'll also discuss monetization strategies like third-party ads and conversion path optimization. Let's get started.

How to Start a Blog for Free and Make Money

Here are eleven steps to start a blog for free and make money from it online. To keep things concise, we've linked plenty of resources, tools, and other blogs to help you get started.

1. Set up your website and create a space for your blog.

The first place to start is your website. You'll need a space to host your blog and publish content.

If you have a website, create a new section for your blog and provide links in your navigational menu so people can find it. If you don't have a website, you can build one using a website builder or hire a service to create one for you. Both options have their advantages, and you can check out this guide to determine the best route for your business.

WATCH VIDEO: 3 Things Every Successful Small Business Website Has

Once you set up your website, you should pick a template for your blog. Your template will determine the look and style of your blog posts. You want your blog to be consistent, and a template ensures each post looks similar when you publish it. You won't have to redesign the page whenever you write a post. Instead, you can drop your writing into the template, tune up a few details, and publish it for customers to see.

2. Set a goal for your blog.

Now is a good time to set a goal for your blog. Your goal will influence content creation and your monetization strategy.

For example, one question you need to answer is how you'll make money from your blog. If you're trying to promote your brand's products and services, your content strategy will look different than if your goal is to advertise with third-party vendors.

We'll discuss monetization strategies later in this post, but it's important to know how you'll make money so you can use it to inform your blog strategy.

3. Conduct keyword and topic research.

Before writing anything, you should define a topic scope for your blog. The topic scope is the range of topics that your blog will cover. It helps you focus on meaningful content and attract the right viewers to your website.

For example, this blog's topic scope is small business advice. We write about marketing, sales, and other topics related to small businesses. No matter how great a new idea for a post on this blog, if it doesn't fit our topic scope, we won't write about it.

Topic scopes are also good for SEO. Search engines like Google see that you post about specific topics and consider you a trustworthy resource. That leads to higher rankings and more traffic for your website.

But how do you find topics that fit within your topic scope? Short answer: keyword research.

WATCH VIDEO: The Smart Way to Use Keywords in Your Online Listings

Keywords are words and phrases that people search for online. When you conduct keyword research, you're looking for phrases your target audience is searching for. Once you identify these keywords, you can create content that helps you rank for these topics.

Here are a few SEO tools that I recommend:

• Semrush
• Google Trends
• Google Search Console

Tip: Keyword research is a process in and of itself. I recommend checking out this guide for a step-by-step explanation.

4. Create an editorial calendar.

Once you've created a list of topics, there's one more step we need to take before we can start writing. We need a content calendar to plan what and when we post to our blog.

Here's what one looks like:

I recommend planning a month of content before publishing it. That keeps you ahead of schedule and flexible in case you need to adapt to changes in your industry.

WATCH VIDEO: Your Paper Calendar Belongs in the Trash

How often you'll publish will depend on your time, resources, and strategy. To get discovered through search engines, they need to know that you're active - posting a few times a week is great for making sure you're always producing new content that keeps your site fresh, and for keeping your audience engaged. That will help you reach the top of search results because Google is looking for the most updated information.

Here are the free tools I recommend using to create a content calendar for your business:

• Trello
• Asana
• Monday.com

5. Write your content.

Now it's time for the fun part - writing!

I know. Half of you are excited to get here; the other half just groaned at the thought of typing.

But blog writing isn't as tedious as it sounds. It's a space to show a little personality, be creative, and talk directly to your audience.

When it comes to creating successful content, your blog should not only share information but entertain as well. It should offer something unique that other blogs don't have because if you want to rank high on Google, you need to stand out from competitors targeting the same topics as you.

Here's my recommendation:

1. Start with your primary topic or keyword.
2. Identify subtopics that relate to your keyword. These are words, phrases, or topics that relate to your primary keyword, but don't warrant a full blog post.
3. Compare websites that currently rank for your keywords. Look for information and page elements that are similar on each site.
4. Include your keywords in headers, descriptions, and titles throughout your post.
5. Add your perspective, tips, and elements other sites don't have.

Here's the good news - the more you do this, the better you get. Once you get into a rhythm of writing every week, it becomes much easier to improve over time and produce content that resonates with your target audience.

Should you use AI to create content?

For blogs? No. I would avoid using AI tools like ChatGPT unless you use them for research or outlining purposes. Plenty of SEO experiments show that ChatGPT content does not rank long-term on Google. You might see an initial boost, but Google will pick up on AI usage and factor that against your site.

You can use AI tools to create content that supports your blog post. For example, you could create a video for your blog or a graphic that explains a subtopic. These elements improve your blog content without cutting corners or removing the human touch that Google is looking for.

6. Edit your blog post and optimize it for SEO.

We're not done yet! Aside from grammar and spelling, you should edit your content and optimize it for search engines.

WATCH VIDEO: Small Business SEO Tips From Google

Here's a checklist of things you should do when editing and uploading your blog post:

• Add your primary keyword to your title.
• Include your primary keyword and subtopics as headers.
• Add images, videos, and stats that are related to your topic.
• Use different types of headers to organize your content.
• Add links to other pages on your site.
• Avoid linking to competitors who rank for this topic.
• Add alt text and title tags to your images.
• Include a meta description.
• Add a call-to-action that directs readers to your monetization channels.
• Use lists and images to break up large sections of text.
• Avoid statistics that are more than two years old.
• Remove unnecessary code.
• Set a featured image for your blog post.

Keep this list handy until these steps become muscle memory. You may also want to create a style guide to make sure the tone, vocabulary, and formatting of all your posts are consistent. This will create a more recognizeable look and feel for your content and build your brand reputation as well.

7. Review, upload, and publish (or schedule) your blog post.

It helps to have someone proofread your content before uploading it. As a small business owner, you may not have that resource handy. Instead, you'll need to rely on editing and SEO tools to review content before publishing.

Here are a few tools that I recommend:

• Grammarly: For grammar, spelling, and clarity
• Yoast SEO: For on-page SEO tips and improvements
• Semrush: For competitor research

You should also consider the day and time you will publish content. The timing of your blog post will influence customer engagement. For instance, most business blogs get more traffic on weekdays than on weekends. If you publish on the weekend, fewer people will see your blog because less people visit your website.

The same goes for holidays. Avoid posting on these days unless you have seasonal content that you want to share.

8. Plan your monetization strategy.

At this point, you should have everything you need to create a steady stream of great content for your blog. But that's only half the battle. The other half is converting your blog traffic into revenue and customer data for your business.

There are plenty of ways to monetize a blog. How you do it will depend on your business and the goals you have for your website.

With that in mind, let's review some of the best ways to use your blog to make money online.

Online Advertising

Online advertising means you're working with another company to sell ads on your website. Adsense is a great example. Google will show ads for products on your blog and pay you when people engage with them.

Online ads are great if you get a lot of traffic, but they can distract users from reading your blog content. If your goal is to sell your company's products and services, you might not want ads on your site, so customers only engage with content related to your business.

Premium or Exclusive Content

If your site receives a lot of traffic or has a loyal readership, you can gate blog content so customers must pay before reading it. Magazines and newspapers do this for exclusive stories, and review sites like Consumer Reports use it to share expert insights on different topics.

This monetization strategy works well with a subscription model, so customers don't have to constantly give you their payment information before reading your blog. You just have to ensure your content is worth paying for, or customers will quickly go to a competitor that offers similar information.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content means you're writing blogs for other brands.

For example, my blog, Pedaling4Pups.com, is a travel website for bike-packing trips. I promote things like this gear checklist that encourages people to shop at different outdoor stores. My goal is to get enough traffic to this page that I can charge businesses to feature their products on my blog.

Your business can take a similar strategy if you have strong partnerships with other brands. You can promote their products in exchange for payment whenever someone buys something after reading your blog.

Ecommerce

If you aren't interested in working with other brands, you can promote your own products and services instead. That will teach people about your company and give them a direct link to your online store.

This blog post is a good example:

We tested and reviewed different brands that offer document management services. As you might have guessed, Thryv's on this list because we sell document management software. People searching for these tools can find this blog post and learn more about us and what we offer.

Brand Awareness

Some blog posts don't sell ads or promote products - these posts build brand awareness, but that doesn't mean they can't generate revenue for your business.

Some blog content is designed for lead generation, which means that they collect customer data. Rather than trying to sell a product, you provide information or entertainment in exchange for data. For example, this button directs you to a checklist to help you buy software for your business.

To get the checklist, you must provide your contact information, such as name, email, etc. Our sales team then uses this data to contact people who may be interested in our products. The more information you gather, the more opportunities you have to make sales.

9. Share content on social media.

With your blog content ready and your monetization strategy set, it's time to share your blog so others can read it. If you've followed SEO best practices, Google should generate traffic organically, but that will take time, and your content isn't guaranteed to rank.

WATCH VIDEO: How to Stand Out on Social Media

You should share your content on social media to get an immediate boost in traffic. Remember, some social media sites like LinkedIn will deprioritize posts with links to your website. Instead, add the link as a comment and use the social media caption to discuss key takeaways or highlights.

10. Create an email newsletter for your blog.

You should also create an email newsletter so people can subscribe to your blog and follow you for updates. Your email newsletter will help you create a loyal readership that routinely engages with your content and drives views to your website.

I recommend keeping your email simple but making the copy fresh and personable. Your email should feel like it's coming from a real person, not a brand voice. It should include descriptions of your posts, images, and links to your website so subscribers can easily find your blog.

Here's an example of what our blog email newsletter looks like:

11. Track the performance of your blog.

If you want to grow your blog over time, you should track its performance to see where you can improve. That tells you what you're doing right and lets you know if you're on pace to meet your goals.

You can track several data points, but the most important ones depend on your goals and how you want to monetize your blog. For instance, traffic is incredibly important if you're selling ads, but engagement (clicks, likes, form submissions) matters more if you want people to visit your online store.

Here are a few data points that you should track and what they mean for your website:

• Total Traffic: The number of people who visit your blog. Track this every month.
• Clicks: The number of people who clicked on an ad or element of your blog. Track this every week.
• Total Keywords: The total number of keywords or search phrases that your blog ranks for. Track this every month.
• Estimated Earnings: This metric estimates how much you've earned promoting ads. Track this every week.
• Conversion Rate: This number represents the percentage of people who visit your blog and click on one of your ads or offers. Track this every month.

Starting Blogs for Small Businesses

Starting a blog for a small business is like building a rocket ship out of Legos. The rest of the pieces will snap into place if you start with a strong foundation. Before you know it, your blog will be blasting off with traffic, presenting plenty of opportunities for monetization. Use these tips to get started, and check out the guide below for more ways to make money online.

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